SPP doctoral alumni are working throughout the world in government, academia, and the private and non-profit sectors. Individual feature stories as well as highlights of accolades about SPP alumni are often featured in Currents; please browse the archives. The following is a list of recent accomplishments:
Peter Arena, May 2004 graduate, is a founding principal at ASR Analytics, a firm that delivers a wide variety of services to federal and state governments, as well as higher education. ASR delivers solutions for the Internal Revenue Service, FEMA, TRICARE, and the Economic Development Administration, among others. ASR was recently ranked number 22 of the Washington Technology Fast 50 as one of the area’s fastest-growing companies.
Chuck Augustine, May 2008 graduate, is a professor of program management at the Defense Acquisition University at Fort Belvoir, Virginia.
Paul M. A. Baker, August 1997 graduate, is director of research at the Center for Advanced Communications Policy, Georgia Institute of Technology, and holds the rank of senior research scientist with the Georgia Institute of Technology. He also is the project director of policy initiatives for the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center (RERC) on Mobile Wireless Technologies and the Workplace Accommodations RERC. He is an adjunct professor with the School of Public Policy at Georgia Institute of Technology and professor, courtesy appointment, PhD Program in Public Affairs, College of Health and Public Affairs, University of Central Florida.
Richard Beck, August 1993 graduate, is the U.S. Department of the Interior’s director for planning and performance management, providing leadership and guidance on strategic planning and assessing programmatic performance to improve organizational effectiveness, efficiency, transparency, and accountability across the department's eight bureaus. Under his guidance, Interior’s Performance and Accountability Report achieved a substantially improved ranking of six in this year’s George Mason University Mercatus Center Performance Report Scorecard. He also provides instruction at sessions conducted by the Office of Personnel Management’s Eastern Management Development Center, the Performance Institute, and is scheduled for the International Quality and Productivity Center’s Performance for Government Road Show in December 2009. His perspectives on government performance management were featured in the fall/winter 2008 edition of IBM’s The Business of Government magazine.
Dean D. Bellas, May 2005 graduate, is president of Urban Analytics, a real estate and urban planning consulting firm that specializes in analyzing the economic and fiscal effects of real estate development and long-term comprehensive land-use planning on state, county, city, and town governments. The firm also conducts studies on economic development policy, economic base analysis, and regional and local fiscal policy. Urban Analytics has offices in Alexandria, Virginia, and Loutraki, Greece.
John Bordeaux, May 2003 graduate, accepted a position at the Stupski Foundation as director for knowledge innovation. The Stupski Foundation was created with a belief in education as a significant factor in transforming the lives of children in our nation's large public school districts, many of whom are deprived of the opportunity to transcend the barriers of poverty and racial inequity because they lack access to quality education.
Michelle Bragg, January 2003 graduate, recently joined the Mayes College of Healthcare Business and Policy at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, as a new faculty member. Bragg holds a joint appointment in the Department of Health Policy and Public Health and the Department of Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Business.
Douglas A. Brook, May 2001 graduate, is professor of public policy and director of the Center for Defense Management Research at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. He recently completed a 13-month tour as a presidential appointee in the Pentagon, serving first as assistant secretary of the Navy (financial management and comptroller) and later as acting undersecretary of defense (comptroller)/chief financial officer.
David Cheney, January 2008 graduate, is the director of the Science and Technology Policy Program at SRI International. Over the past year, he has worked on a series of projects in Saudi Arabia, including assistance to the Saudi national science agency (the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology) and helping plan a large women's university, the Princess Noura University. He also led a major evaluation of Ohio's technology-based economic development programs and is working on a clean energy-based economic development strategy for Seattle. He will teach a course on technology and trade at SPP in spring 2010.
Srisombat Chokprajakchat, January 2004 graduate, is program director, Doctoral Program in Criminology, Justice Administration, and Society, Department of Social Science, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Mahidol University, Nakhon Prathom, Thailand.
John M. Cobin, August 1996 graduate, is a professor of economics and public policy in several Chilean universities. He also is a part-time professor of financial planning at the King’s College in New York City and Le Torneau University in Texas.
John J. Coleman, May 2007 graduate, is president of the Prescription Drug Research Center at the George Mason University Enterprise Center in Fairfax, Virginia.
Sameeksha Desai, August 2008 graduate, is a visiting scholar at the Kauffman Foundation and assistant professor in entrepreneurship and innovation at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Bloch School of Business. In 2008–09, she served as principal investigator of an academic expert team contracted by the U.S. Army to study entrepreneurship and small business in southern Iraq.
David Diamond, May 2008 graduate, is a research fellow at LMI, a nonprofit government-consulting company in McLean, Virginia. He also is a commander in the Navy Reserve and recently completed a seven-month mobilization to U.S. European Command (EUCOM) Headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany. At EUCOM, he served as a political-military affairs officer for the Balkans and helped develop the EUCOM Energy Security Strategy.
Lei Ding, August 2005 graduate, is now an assistant professor in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan.
Daniel Donnelly, August 1996 graduate, is associate academic vice president/associate provost for administration at Duquesne University, where he is responsible for managing budget and facility operations for the 10 schools in the Academic Affairs Division.
Richard Fabsitz, May 2003 graduate, is deputy chief of the Epidemiology Branch at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI). He supervises the genetic epidemiology group and manages a portfolio of research grants and contracts related to the genetics of cardiovascular disease. He also chairs the NHLBI Metrics Working Group, evaluating the possible use of metrics to guide research priorities, management, and evaluation.
DeAnn J. Farr, August 2004 graduate, recently retired from the U.S. Navy and now works full time as a senior analyst at the Center for Naval Analysis, focusing on health policy research.
Peter Frank, January 2005 graduate, is an assistant professor of economics at Wingate University in Wingate, North Carolina.
Doug Frye, May 2004 graduate, is principal consultant at Skilled Analytics, a Virginia-based consultancy. Frye supports a large-scale Army financial enterprise resource planning implementation and has written or co-written articles and books on business process management.
John Gordon, May 2005 graduate, is a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation. He focuses on national security and international defense policy issues and has led numerous RAND studies for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Departments of the Army and Navy, as well as for several European governments, such as Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Italy. He also is an adjunct professor at Mason’s SPP and Georgetown University's Security Studies Program.
Ellen D. Harpel, August 2006 graduate, is president of Business Development Advisors, an economic development and market intelligence consulting company in Arlington, Virginia (www.businessdevelopmentadvisors.com).
Ronil Hira, August 2002 graduate, is associate professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York. He is also a research associate with the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. His research covers high-skill immigration, engineering labor markets, and innovation policy. The second edition of his book Outsourcing America (AMACOM) was released in 2008. He recently contributed a chapter on the globalization of innovation to the book Manufacturing a Better Future for America (AAM, 2009).
Terry Holzheimer, May 2006 graduate, is director of Arlington Economic Development in Arlington, Virginia. He is a member of the adjunct faculty at Virginia Tech in the Urban Affairs and Planning Program. In April 2008, he was elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute of Certified Planners.
Scott Jackson, May 2008 graduate, is a program economist in the U.S. Foreign Service with the U.S. Agency for International Development. He is studying Portuguese at the Foreign Service Institute and expects to depart for assignment to Angola in spring 2010. Since graduation, he has worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Orkestra Institute for Competitiveness and Development, San Sebastian, Spain, and was an adjunct professor in entrepreneurship at the Wake Forest University Department of Entrepreneurship and Liberal Arts. Jackson also has two academic articles being published: "Mulling over Massachusetts: Health Insurance Mandates and Entrepreneurs" in Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, and "Sonic City: The Evolving Economic Geography of the Music Industry," co-written with Richard Florida, in the Journal of Planning Education and Research.
Katherine D. Jefferson, January 2009 graduate, is working as the Virginia Department of Transportation’s northern region operations systems engineering manager. Her group is responsible for developing projects to deploy intelligent transportation systems technologies on surface streets and freeways in Northern Virginia. She also conducts research and performs engineering analyses of existing and proposed assets and systems to enhance the operational efficiency of the Northern Virginia transportation network.
Dengjian Jin, May 1998 graduate, is chair and associate professor of international business and management, John and Ann Curley Faculty Chair of International Studies, Business, and Management at Dickinson College. His dissertation, “The Dynamics of Knowledge Regimes,” was published in 2001, and he is working on another book, The Origins of Knowledge.
Kirk Johnson, August 1998 graduate, is the senior economic advisor at Provincial Reconstruction Team, Muthanna Province, Iraq. As a U.S. State Department official, he advises provincial officials and the U.S. Embassy on economic development issues. Previous to his State Department work, he was director, special projects and strategic planning, for the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, where he managed a large part of the "Hard Lessons: The Iraq Reconstruction Story" book project.
Ivan Katchanovski, January 2002 graduate, is a visiting scholar at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University.
Bruce Lindsey, August 2005 graduate, is a captain in the U.S. Navy and took command of the nuclear aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) on July 7, 2009. In January 2010, he will take the ship to its new home port of San Diego, California. En route, the ship will work with numerous South America navies and the sailors will have the opportunity to learn about different cultures during their port visits along the way.
LTC Michael Litzelman, May 2001 graduate, served as the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) forward team chief for Western Ninewa Province, Iraq. He provided for the establishment and expansion of the PRT’s Economic, Rule of Law, Governance, Reconstruction, and Health and Education Sections, and the U.S. Agency for International Development programs to the western area of operations. Litzelman also advised, trained, and supported governmental leaders, including mayors and council members of local cities and villages, to develop capacity, good governance, and transparent decision making. Litzelman serves as the senior civil affairs planner in the Information Operations Cell for Civil Affairs Actions in Afghanistan, as well as the liaison officer between U.S. and NATO forces and other organizations conducting civil military operations within the Afghan theater. Litzelman reviews all civil affairs assessments in Afghanistan and is responsible for civil military operations data collection, plans, and reporting, and dissemination of data to U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
Jose Loyola-Trujillo, May 2005 graduate, is provost of Universidad de las Americas Puebla (www.udlap.mx). UDLAP is one of Mexico’s largest private universities with approximately 7,500 students and more than 100 undergraduate and graduate degrees. He teaches courses in public policy at the undergraduate and graduate level.
Mark Maggio, May 2004 graduate, is professor of social sciences at the Des Moines Area Community College in Iowa. He was tenured in the departments of Economics, Statistics, Sociology, and Global Studies. His sociology students conduct student-led field research on substance abuse inside a medium security prison, while his economics students study liberty and Austrian economics on a stipend in New York each summer. He has developed and teaches an introductory comparative course on the Middle East and Islam. Maggio continues to operate his small independent historic farm, as well.
Samuel C. McQuade III, August 2001 graduate, serves as the Professional Studies Graduate Program coordinator in the Center for Multidisciplinary Studies at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and as a founding board member of the Cyber Safety and Ethics Initiative (www.bcybersafe.org). He teaches and conducts research at RIT in such areas as computer crime, enterprise security, and career options in high-technology societies.
Karen Metscher, January 2009 graduate, is a senior policy consultant, serving as the practice area leader for health program analysis and evaluation at the Altarum Institute. The institute is a nonprofit health systems research and consulting organization serving government and private-sector clients. It provides objective research and tailored consulting services that help clients understand and solve the complex systems problems that affect health and health care.
Andrea Morris, May 2008 graduate, is the base realignment and closure project manager for Arlington County, Virginia. She oversees a project that includes infrastructure development, planning and development policies, business and workforce assistance, business and tenant incentives, communications, federal and state legislative initiatives, and marketing strategies.
G. Stephane Philogene, August 2000 graduate, is assistant director for policy and planning in the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research, National Institutes of Health.
Christine Pommerening, January 2004 graduate, is a research assistant professor at Mason’s SPP.
James Riggle, August 2002 graduate, is a research associate professor at Mason’s SPP, where he works with international groups on training and research. Currently, he has a group of media professionals from Shanghai learning about media in the United States in preparation for the Shanghai World Expo in 2010.
Michelle Sager, May 1999 graduate, is an assistant director for strategic issues at the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) in Washington, D.C. During the past year, she played a key role coordinating and leading GAO's bimonthly reviews and subsequent reports and testimony on the use of Recovery Act funds in selected states and localities. She also leads GAO's work on state and local budget issues and continues to serve as a member of GAO's adjunct faculty, as well as the PA Times editorial board. She received awards for meritorious service and results through teamwork in recognition of her sustained leadership of GAO's Recovery Act work.
Lisa A. Sturtevant (formerly Fowler), May 2006 graduate, stayed on at Mason’s SPP as a postdoctoral fellow/research assistant professor, working with the Center for Regional Analysis (CRA) and teaching quantitative methods courses in the master’s program. She took a year off (2008–09) to teach high school math and statistics and returned to SPP and CRA this past summer. Her recent publications include Domestic Migration To and From the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Area:1985–2007 (with Yu Jin Jung); Foreclosures in the Washington, DC, Region (with John McClain); and Policies and Programs to Preserve Affordable Housing: A Review of Incentives and Recommendations for Northern Virginia. She also writes monthly reports for the Northern Virginia Association of Realtors and quarterly reports for the Richmond Association of Realtors on the local and state housing markets.
Jack Underhill, August 2004 graduate, is secretary of the board of Mason’s Osher Life Long Learning Institute and vice president for Northern Virginia of the Virginia Poetry Society. He published an article of radical civil service reform at the Department of Defense and Homeland Security, presented a paper on performance management at the Miami conference of the American Society of Public Administration (ASPA), and is preparing a paper on poverty interventions for an ASPA conference in March. He is a published poet, has had a number of photographic shows, and visits heart patients weekly at Fairfax Hospital for Mended Hearts.
Lt. Col. Mike Veneri, May 2004 graduate, will become the deputy department head for the Military and Strategic Studies (MSS) Department at the U.S. Air Force Academy this January. He currently serves as the chief of the Operational Concepts Division for the MSS Department where he is the course director for irregular warfare and armed groups, and is putting together an armed forces and society course that examines social, economic, and political influences on U.S. military policies. He spent the summer as an academic mentor at the National Military Academy of Afghanistan in Kabul where both Air Force Academy and West Point instructors are helping the Afghan military build a four-year degree program that commissions officers and is similar to U.S. service academies.
Julie Walters, August 2005 graduate, is an assistant professor at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. She teaches in the political science and MPA degree programs and is a prelaw advisor and faculty advisor for the MPA honor society (Pi Alpha Alpha), among other responsibilities.
Emily Xiaoxia Wang, June 2006 graduate, is an investment officer with the International Finance Corporate of the World Bank Group. Her responsibilities include making investments to private companies in developing countries and managing an investment portfolio.
Shanea Watkins, January 2007 graduate, is a research and evaluation specialist with the Department of Defense Education Activity, where she is responsible for the evaluation of academic programs serving military dependents in Department of Defense schools worldwide.
Rhys Williams, August 1999 graduate, is a member of the Senior Executive Service and deputy director of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Office of Nonproliferation and Verification Research and Development. He leads the day-to-day operations of a several-hundred-million-dollar organization that supports more than 1,000 researchers in academia, industry, and the national laboratories.
Aleta Wilson, June 2001 graduate, teaches business and technology courses at the Higher Colleges of Technology in Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates.
Clay Wilson, June 2001 graduate, just completed an assignment on emergency management for the United Arab Emirates under contract with Good Harbor.
Guang Yang, January 2005 graduate, is a strategic advisor for New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, the country’s economic development agency, located in Wellington.
John Zangardi, May 2005 graduate, is a member of the Senior Executive Service with the Department of the Navy. He is the director of program integration for the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Information Dominance, where he develops and integrates the budget submission.
Ting Zhang, January 2008 graduate, is a research assistant professor at the University of Baltimore. She had two books published in 2008: Elderly Entrepreneurship in an Aging US Economy: It's Never Too Late (World Scientific Publishing) and Aging in the "Knowledge Economy": Crises or Opportunities? (VDM Verlag). She is finishing a co-edited volume with Professor Roger Stough, Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth in China, which includes several chapters written by Mason SPP professors and students. The book is scheduled to be published by World Scientific Publishing in 2010. She recently won a research grant from the U.S. Department of Labor and has been invited to several national conventions to discuss economic recovery research.
Zuoquan Zhou, August 2004 graduate, is a professor at the Institute of Policy and Management, Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.